Hasnat Khan, a 62-year-old Pakistani-born surgeon who dated Princess Diana from 1995 until just months before he died on August 31, 1997, has broken his silence.
Twelve years later since she last spoke, Dr. Khan - whom she used to call Mr. Wonderful - has now revealed to the
Daily Mail
how the controversial BBC interview that will go down in the history of the British royal family and of the media in which Diana of Wales spoke about the infidelity of Charles of England with Camilla Parker-Bowles and pronounced the famous phrase “in my marriage there are three of us and that is a crowd”.
Khan explained that this explosive report was the result of the manipulation that journalist Martin Bashir exercised on Diana Spencer.
“One of his most attractive qualities in Diana was her vulnerability.
It was what made the public love her.
Later I realized that Bashir exploited those vulnerabilities.
He was very persuasive with Diana and filled her head with garbage, "he said.
In that interview between Lady Di and Martin Bashir on the BBC's
Panorama
program in November 1995, which was chosen in 2007 by 3,000 British people as "the most memorable" in the history of the public entity, the princess, who had separated three years before Charles of England, she exposed her fears, weaknesses and need to be heard.
And before more than 23 million viewers, she spoke of the infidelities of both and questioned the abilities of her then still husband.
Last November, 25 years after the broadcast of this meeting, a documentary by the British network ITV uncovered a whole plot of blackmail and lies used to convince the then still wife of the heir to the throne that has questioned the credibility of
Panorama
, Bashir and the BBC itself.
And now Khan claims that the interviewer Martin Bashir "exploited" Diana.
The reason why Hasnat Khan has decided to speak now is because, as he confessed to the British newspaper, a few days ago he received a call from a person who knows both him and Bashir.
“He called me on the phone and told me that he knew Martin Bashir and that he was under a lot of stress.
He said that he was a decent man but that he was very depressed and that he had to ask me the favor of talking to him. "
Far from defending the journalist, he has uncovered all the negative aspects that he remembers about him.
A few weeks after Khan met the princess, she told him that she had found a "mole" who was passing information to her from the Palace.
He was referring to Bashir.
Since then, Khan noticed a change in Diana, who believed she was being eavesdropped on the phone or had tampered with the brakes on her car.
“She was not a paranoid person, but with all these ideas and talk about wiretapping, Bashir tried to take her to a place where she distrusted things and the people around her.
He was an intelligent man ”.
The appearance of Bashir in the life of Princess Diana more or less coincides in time with that of Khan.
The surgeon remembers the day he met the journalist, in a rural pub where the three met at the request of Lady Di.
Diana's then boyfriend has assured that he was astonished and also very offended by the journalist's questions: “Almost from the first moment he began to ask me very personal and very direct questions about Diana and our relationship.
I got mad.
It was impertinent for this man I didn't know to speak to us like that ”, he added.
After that meeting, he expressed his bad omens about the journalist.
"I told Diana that I didn't like Bashir, that I didn't trust him and that I should cut off their relationships," he said.
However, she went ahead and recorded the controversial interview.
When Khan saw her on television, he couldn't believe it.
“Diana asked me what I thought.
I felt it was a big mistake and I told him it was terrible. "
After the broadcast, Khan asked Diana what the position of the royals would be from then on.
"She was absolutely clear and said that they would ask (her and Carlos) to divorce."
So it was, to the happiness of Lady Di, since it was what I wanted, "he said.
The princess's relationship with Bashir ended suddenly, Hasnat has revealed to the British newspaper.
Diana told him that she was no longer in contact with him.
“I asked her why and she said because of Guillermo.
I could believe it, because the children were fundamental in everything she did, ”she said.
Khan met William and Henry on several occasions during his two-year relationship with Princess Diana.
“Guillermo hated the
Panorama
interview
and told his mother that he had made a mistake that had upset him a lot.
He was very direct and said: 'Mom, Bashir is not a good person,' he revealed.
Certainly, Prince William is the only one in the royal family who has spoken out about the investigations launched at the BBC into whether Lady Di was coerced into conducting the interview.
"It is a step in the right direction," he said last November.
Hasnat Khan, whom the princess's friends have always described as "the true love of her life," is a man who has always kept a low profile.
After his death, he spoke only once in a
2008
Sunday Telegraph
interview
, when he revealed that he still had nightmares about his death, which occurred 11 years earlier.
The surgeon, who left the UK in 2007, breaks his silence again in defense of the memory of his great love.